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‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’ Writer Tom MacRae, Buccaneer Media Join Nevision’s ‘Beetle Boy’ Adaptation

Jake Kanter
·2 min read

EXCLUSIVE: Tom MacRae, the creator of the Everybody’s Talking About Jamie musical and upcoming feature, and Marcella producer Buccaneer Media have joined Nevision’s adaptation of MG Leonard’s Beetle Boy children’s books.

MacRae is scripting the live-action/CGI returnable series, with Buccaneer co-producing. Oscar-winning studio Framestore, which helped create the CGI demons in His Dark Materials, has also been attached to the project.

The series will be set in the UK and is based on a trilogy of books (Beetle Boy, Beetle Queen, and Battle Of The Beetles) that were optioned by Keeping Faith co-producer Nevision in 2018. The books are published by Chicken House in the UK and Scholastic in the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

They center on 13-year-old Darkus Cuttle’s search for his kidnapped father, leading him to discover a mountain of extraordinary beetles and pitting him against the mad-scientist of the fashion world Lucretia Cutter, an haute-couture villainess with an alarming interest in insects.

Executive producers are Maya Leonard, Richard Tulk-Hart and Tony Wood for Buccaneer Media, and Nigel Pickard and James Cabourne for Nevision.

MacRae, who has also written on Doctor Who and Lewis, said: “Until I read M. G. Leonard’s brilliant books, I thought beetles were scary and a little bit gross, but Darkus’ story has taught me to love them. Now, the rest of the two-legged world will get to fall in love with these incredible creatures too.”

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, the feature film version of the Olivier Award-nominated stage musical, will be released in the UK and U.S. on February 26 by 20th Century Studios/Disney.

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